House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says a special committee on global warming will continue in the new Congress.

Created in 2007, the Select Committee on Energy Independence on Global Warming is led by Edward J. Markey , D-Mass.

“I think we do have a need for one more term, because our work is not finished. We do not have the climate change legislation that I had hoped we might be closer to, at least at this point,” Pelosi said.

Pelosi created the committee largely as a check against John D. Dingell of Michigan, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, who will be replaced next year by Henry A. Waxman , D-Calif. Liberals feared that Dingell would not move aggressively enough to address climate change.

The select committee has no legislative authority, but it has subpoena power to conduct investigations. Markey has held hearings on the implications of global warming and strategies for how to address it.

“The committee serves a tremendous intellectual resource purpose for me to get the scientific basis for how we go forward,” Pelosi said. She said the committee would not have any new legislative authority in the next Congress.

The chairman of the select committee is appointed by Pelosi, without a vote of the full Democratic caucus. A spokesman says Markey is interested in keeping his chairmanship.

Markey and Waxman are close allies who are both calling for a fast and stringent approach to fighting global warming. But they could be at odds with more conservative Democrats who want to hedge against economic impacts on industry.

Pelosi said she would talk to the incoming Obama administration about the nature and timing of a climate bill.

“We want to do it right and we want to do it in a bipartisan way, and we are going to do it working with the new president of the United States,” she said.

Markey is a senior member of the Energy and Commerce panel; only Waxman and Dingell outrank him. Markey is chairman of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet.